


dipping your toes in the water doesn't count

by LadySilvertongue



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation, Drowning, Inspired by The Haunting of Bly Manor, M/M, Mouth-to-Mouth, Spoilers, Temporary Character Death, Whumptober 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-13
Updated: 2020-10-13
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:07:42
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26991904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilvertongue/pseuds/LadySilvertongue
Summary: Whumptober 2020 Entry Day 13: Breathe in, Breathe Out"Like how you’d taught me, remember? Breathe in," a deep inhale. "Breathe out. In and out. Come on."In, and out, that's all. That’s all Thor needs to do. Take a breath, let it out. That’s /all/. Instead, Thor remains motionless, skin tinged blue and water trickling out of parted lips.
Relationships: Loki/Thor (Marvel)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	dipping your toes in the water doesn't count

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I binged Bly Manor and remembered this prompt in the Whumptober post and well... here we are. There was also a seventeen hour power interruption here, and my boredom skyrocketed. I'll try to fill more of the prompts, but no promises.

Thor can pinpoint the exact moment it started. It was when Frigga died—a freak accident, everyone would continue to say, years after she’d passed. It was simply just her time to go. But Thor knows different.

You see, Thor was born different too—under not so very pleasant circumstances, as his mother had recounted. A chilling story about how she had started working as a governess to two children at a manor in Essex, and found herself with a burden to carry home.

Not him, no.  
  
Frigga had always loved Thor no matter the unfortunate death of his father there, and she’d never made him feel otherwise. No, this burden was far more sinister—a burden that was passed down to him after Frigga had failed to keep it at bay.   
  
Failed to keep /her/ at bay.  
  
It started as how all trouble starts—with an accident.   
  
They said Frigga had fallen into the ice at the lake in his hometown, trying to fetch something she had dropped. Those who saw it that day would say Frigga looked as though she was searching the ice frantically, so perhaps it was something truly important.  
  
Some said it was her wallet.   
  
Others said it was an important letter.  
  
Other still, her wedding ring.  
  
None of them were right, of course, because Thor knows Frigga wasn’t looking for something. It was the other way around, the complete opposite.  
/Something/ was looking for /Frigga/.  
  
Has been looking for her since the day she left the manor.   
  
And that day, it finally found her.   
  
Thor had been called out of his classes, but he can barely remember the details. All he can recount is that he knows Loki was with him every step of the way, and that in the back of his head, a tickle had started.   
  
A teeny, tiny tickle, really.  
  
As though something had awoken and was standing right at the walls of his consciousness, /begging/ to be let in.   
  
You see, Thor was born different.  
  
He has always been able to see what most people can’t.  
  
Hear what most people can’t.  
  
Thor has always been able to feel... everything—from everyone.  
  
A blessing and a curse. Nobody has ever been able to deceive him, and he’s seen through every fake façade most people put on. It always, always left a sour taste in his mouth.  
  
Until Loki.   
  
Loki, up until now, is the realest person Thor has ever known, despite everyone saying that he’s a lying bastard.  
  
Maybe that’s why Thor is so taken with the man, after all these years—even now, as they both sit on the flooded bathroom floor, wide eyed, both of them. Both of them not really sure what they can do at this point.   
  
You see, ever since Frigga’s death, the little tickle became an annoying scratch.  
  
The annoying scratch became an insistent clawing.  
  
The insist clawing became a wild frenzy.  
  
Seven years, it’s been, and this is when he’s finally worn down. All those sleepless nights worrying about the malicious monster lurking just right at his periphery. All the nightmares of people he’s killed—the feeling of gleeful intent of the people he’s going to kill.  
  
Thor knows it isn’t him. Not really.  
  
It’s /her/.  
  
The lady in the lake.  
  
The matron of the manor where Thor’s father had died and left his mother a widow. Where Frigga, in an act to save the children she’d been hired to watch over, invited the thing haunting them into /her/.   
  
“I don’t understand. You told me she was gone. You said... you said you hadn’t felt her since-“  
  
“I know what I said!” The moment Thor registers how loud he’d been, he backtracks, pressing the palm of his hands into his eyes. “I know what I said but she’s—she’s back. She’s right. Fucking. /Here/!”  
  
Thor shifts his hands into his hair, pulling hard enough to upset a few roots, eyes flooding with frustrated tears at Loki’s stricken expression.  
  
He doesn’t want to lose Loki.  
  
He loves Loki more than he’s ever loved anyone—more than even his mother.  
  
Definitely more than himself.  
  
“I can’t—I just—I can’t do it, Lo. Mom couldn’t do it, couldn’t keep her away, and she paid with her /life/, and now—“  
  
“And now, it’s you, Thor. It’s you! You’re stronger, so much stronger, your mom knew that, and I know it’s fucking cliche, but you have something she didn’t have... you have me. You aren’t alone. We can just—“  
  
“Loki, that’s exactly what I’m worried about! Don’t you fucking get it?! What if it hurts /you/? I can’t—I—“  
  
Loki gets to his knees then, cupping Thor’s cheeks and pressing their foreheads together. Thor closes his eyes and wraps his own hands around the younger man’s wrists.   
  
“I can’t. Loki, I can’t.”  
  
“You can,” Loki counters, delicate fingers tangling in his hair, pressing soft kisses to Thor’s lips. “You can. You won’t slip—I know you won’t. You’re too stubborn to let her get away with that, and if somehow she manages to wear you down, that’s okay. I’ll be here. We’ll take it one day at a time.”  
  
Loki climbs over Thor’s lap, straddling his waist as they deepen the kiss.   
  
Fear.  
  
Longing.  
  
Desperation.  
  
Love...  
  
Thor pulls away first, resting his forehead on Loki’s collarbone as he feels the other’s arms wrapping around his shoulders. He can tell it’s Loki, and not the demon toying with him. Thor knows how Loki feels too intimately.  
  
“I love you,” Thor mumbles, knowing what he has to do. “I love you so much.”   
  
“I know. I love you, too,” Loki sighs, another wet kiss stolen from Thor’s lips. “I won’t let you slip away, Odinson. You’re mine.”  
  
“Always. Always yours.”  
  
Thor hates lying to Loki, so he doesn’t.  
  
He will always belong to Loki.  
  
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
  
Loki doesn’t know if it’s possible for... abilities... to rub off on other people, especially something like Thor’s, but as they get ready for bed that night, he has a slight feeling of unease.   
  
Discontent.  
  
Fear.  
  
Regret.  
  
It persists into his dreams, where he chases after Thor, and yet can never reach him. Where he feels damp grass beneath his feet. Where he feels a sense of helplessness at the injustice of it all.   
  
“I just wanted to live,” Loki mouthes, but it isn’t his voice that comes from his mouth, and it startles him awake so badly he bolts upright from the bed.  
  
The light to the bathroom is on, and Loki sighs, until he turns to look at the spot beside him and finds a note.  
  
  
“ I will always be yours, even   
when we’re apart. I will not   
risk you. I love you.  
\- Thor “  
  
  
Loki wastes no time.  
  
He flings himself off of the bed, puts on the first pair of clothes he can get his hands on, and gets behind the wheel of their car. His breaths are heaving as he starts it, but it isn’t because of the fact that he’s the one that turned the key. He barely even realizes that he’s actually /driving/ without having a panic attack. It should make him happy, ecstatic, but it hardly matters now. It hardly matters if he doesn’t make it on time.  
  
\- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -  
  
The place is beautiful.  
  
Disarmingly so, one might say, but Loki’s eyes take in none of it. He’s running, this way and that, out of breath, losing his mind. The place is as unfamiliar to him as a backwater country in another planet might be.  
  
He won’t make it.  
  
He won’t make it—  
  
It keeps repeating in his head, he won’t be able to find Thor in time.  
  
Not like this.  
  
Not like this—he needs to—he needs to... take a breath. He can hear Thor’s voice in his head, in his memories... he swears he can even hear the smile in it.  
  
“Breathe, Loki. Come on, breathe in,” he remembers Thor saying. Loki takes a deep breath.  
  
“Breathe out,” Loki releases it, still remembering Thor’s words. “See? You’ve got this.”  
  
Them against the world. That’s how it’s always been with him and Thor—just them against the world. Against all odds. And somehow... somehow they always managed to beat whatever was thrown at them. There is no world where they can continue to exist without the other.  
  
Loki feels the chill of water surrounding him then, feels himself floating, and then another sensation—his feet, walking. He doesn’t know how he can feel two different things at once, but when he opens his eyes, it’s to see the last bubbles of air gurgle in the middle of a murky lake.   
  
He doesn’t think twice about running toward it, screaming Thor’s name.  
  
The water is /cold/.  
  
It makes his skin break out in gooseflesh, but he keeps moving forward. Soon, he’s waist deep. A couple of steps more and he’s neck deep in. And then—and then? Loki is under the frigid cold, swimming towards the bottom.   
  
He can’t see shit, with just the few streaks of light coming through, and the water itself is too cloudy. He runs out of air before he can find Thor, and he breaks the surface with a heaving gasp.  
  
“Thor!” He yells.  
  
The panic just right under his skin, ready to break out and drown him too. For a second, he thinks that may not be a bad idea. How long has it been since he’d jumped in? How long has it been since /Thor/ did? Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad, if it meant he and Thor would be together. Maybe he should just...  
  
“No!” Loki hisses to himself, then dives back under.  
  
His second dive in yields nothing again before he runs out of air.  
  
His third dive in, and he’s almost out of breath and needing to go back to the surface again when his hand brushes against something in the water. Loki grabs a fistful of fabric, and brings himself towards it. Once he’s gotten hold of a limb, Loki scrambles to wrap his arm around a chest.  
  
It’s Thor.  
  
It’s Thor—he knows.  
  
It’s so familiar, the shape of him—so familiar, there’s no mistaking it.  
  
When he breaks the surface, slower this time around, he gasps for air, the water dripping into his eyes and pulling him under several times before he manages to stabilize himself.  
  
“I’ve got you,” he gasps, though Thor isn’t moving. Isn’t sucking in the crisp air as greedily as Loki is. “I’ve got you. You’re okay.”  
  
Loki doesn’t know how he does it, but he manages to bring both himself and Thor back towards land. It only gets more difficult from there, though, because Thor is limp and heavy, and without the water making him lighter, it’s a struggle to get him the rest of the way towards the damp grass. He gets behind Thor and wraps both arms around Thor’s chest, under the man’s armpits, and /heaves/.  
  
When nothing but Thor’s shins are in the water, Loki drops to his ass, the other man between his knees, leaned against his chest. He brushes Thor’s hair from his face and curses.   
  
The man’s entire face is fucking blue.   
  
Luckily, because of how Frigga had died, both he and Thor had taken first aid classes—specifically, both of them had gotten CPR certificates, so he knows exactly what to do. He’d always wished he’d never actually need to apply those skills, though, let alone on the man he loves.  
  
Loki gets to his knees and lowers Thor to the grass, turning the other’s face to the side and letting the water trickle out of his mouth before repositioning him. His heart beating wildly in his chest, Loki leans down and closes his lips over Thor’s open mouth, breathing out a slow breath.   
  
Thor’s chest barely rises.   
  
Loki gives him another, then positions himself over the man, hands interlocked on the center of Thor’s chest. He keeps his eyes trained on the other’s face as he starts doing compressions, each one sending a bit of water out from the man’s mouth. He reaches the count of thirty in his head, and leans down again to exhale another two breaths of air into Thor’s lungs.  
  
“Come on. Come on, Thor,” Loki says, going straight back to the heart massage, each compression making the blonde jerk. The only movements he’s making. “Come on.”  
  
Thirty done.  
  
Loki leans down again for two more breaths.  
  
Thirty compressions, two breaths.  
  
Thirty compressions, two breaths.   
  
Thirty compressions, two breaths.  
  
Loki starts to feel the adrenalin waning by the time he reaches his thirteenth cycle, and Thor still isn’t breathing, water still trickling out of parted lips. Not even agonal gasps or choking noises.  
  
“Come on! Breathe!” Loki hisses, arms aching as he tilts Thor’s head back again.  
  
Pinches his nose shut again.  
  
Covers Thor’s mouth with his own again.  
  
Breathes life into Thor’s lungs again.  
  
“Breathe!” Loki yells when Thor remains slack. “Damn it Thor!”  
  
He presses his ear against Thor’s still chest, tries to make out a heartbeat, but it’s silent there too. Loki sobs as he locks his fingers and leans over Thor again, starting another cycle of CPR. It’s been over ten minutes, he reckons. The brain can only survive without oxygen for so long...  
  
“Please, Thor. Please—“ Loki begs, using his own weight now to compress Thor’s chest deep enough.  
  
“Please. Like how you’d taught me, remember? Breathe in,” Loki stops at thirty, leans down towards Thor’s cold lips—a far cry from how warm they should be—and exhales. He pulls away with a gasp, a trail of his spittle clinging to Thor’s mouth as he presses his hand against the man’s chest, “breathe out. In and out, come on.”  
  
He can’t even feel the slightest puff of air as he presses harder on Thor’s chest. Just sees more water leaking out of the man’s mouth. There’s a small puddle beneath his head now just from Loki giving him CPR.  
  
“Please,” Loki sobs again, pressing their lips together, this time in a kiss. “Please, please don’t leave me.”  
  
He closes his mouth over Thor’s, breathes out, lets the other’s chest deflate, kisses him.  
  
He closes his mouth over Thor’s, breathes out, lets the others chest deflate, kisses him.  
  
He closes his mouth over Thor’s, breathes out, lets the others chest deflate, kisses him.  
  
Breathe in, breathe out. That’s all Thor needs to do. Take a breath, let it out. That’s /all/.  
  
Loki knows he’s breaking protocol, wasting precious time, and thinks that maybe he knows, in the back of his head, that he can’t bring Thor back. That Thor is dead.  
  
That Thor is lost to him forever.  
  
It’s that last thought that spurs Loki, and he gets to his knees again and locks his fingers together once more, the palm of one hand flat on Thor’s chest. The count starts up in his head, his eyes zero back in on Thor’s blue-tinged face as the compressions rock his motionless form back and forth.  
  
“Come on. Come on, I know you’re there,” Loki warns, gaining force behind every push now, ignoring the snap of cartilage, or bone, who fucking /cares/? Thor just needs to take a breath. “You fucking breathe, Thor! I’m not letting you slip. I’m not going to let you fucking slip, so breathe!”  
  
He leans back on his haunches and clasps both hands together before bringing them down on Thor’s chest—once, twice, three times. Loki imagines it would hurt a lot when Thor wakes up.   
  
“Wake up, damn you!”  
  
He leans down and breathes for the man, and gets a mouthful of water in response as Thor convulses beneath him. Loki is quick to pull away, quick to roll Thor onto his side as he expels buckets worth of murky water.   
  
“That’s it—that’s it, Thor,” he praises, the sting of tears in his eyes blurring his vision. “That’s it. You’re okay, I’ve got you. You’re okay.”  
  
Thor throws up even more, but goes still again after a full minute of bringing the water up and out.   
  
It’s a good sign, though. It’s good—it means Thor’s body is /fighting/ to live.  
  
Loki rolls him onto his back again, leaning over him. Thor is wheezing, throat bobbing up and down, eyes open in slits. It’s the most beautiful sight Loki has ever laid his eyes on, but he knows it’s not over yet. Not until Thor is /actually/ breathing, so he leans down and presses their lips together in a sloppy kiss, then cradles Thor’s head, pulling the man’s mouth open.  
  
Loki takes a breath and fills Thor’s lungs.  
  
He breathes for the both of them.  
  
Thor struggles for another couple of minutes, but Loki’s there. When Thor finally, finally takes in air on his own, his hand reaching around aimlessly, Loki is quick to take it, squeezing. He pulls the other man into his lap, cradling him.  
  
“I’m here. I’m here—just breathe. In and out.”  
  
Thor does, steadily.  
  
Deep, strong breaths.  
  
Loki doesn’t see the odd grin that makes its home on Thor’s face.


End file.
